


it's just a restless feeling by my side

by wholesome_gay



Series: sunday morning and I'm falling [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Drinking, F/F, Fem!Wolfstar, Female Remus Lupin, Female Sirius Black, Genderbending, Implied Sexual Content, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), POV Remus Lupin, Post-Hogwarts, Rule 63
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-27
Updated: 2020-02-27
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:27:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22927177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wholesome_gay/pseuds/wholesome_gay
Summary: Remus spends the evening alone with Sirius in her new apartment.
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Series: sunday morning and I'm falling [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1647790
Comments: 2
Kudos: 36





	it's just a restless feeling by my side

**Author's Note:**

> This is the T-rated version. :)
> 
> The wonderful art is by @harrysapples on Tumblr!

It takes a whole afternoon for the five of them to move Sirius into her new flat. Most of the furniture is from thrift shops, although the Potters have generously donated a few pieces. It’s not a particularly nice flat, and the neighborhood is a bit dodgy, but Sirius seems happy about it. 

The remains of takeout curry litter the coffee table. James, Peter, and Lily left about ten minutes ago. Remus is on the faux-leather sofa that sinks in the middle, a lukewarm butterbeer in one hand. Sirius is trying to open the window, which is very stuck, in the hope of catching a breeze; the August heat has been overbearing, even with cooling charms, but it’s evening now and finally a little cooler outside than inside. Sirius gives up on her manual attempts and points her wand at the window. It opens with a startling _crack._

“Did you break the window?” Remus asks nonchalantly. 

“No,” Sirius says. “Although that’s what it deserves.” 

Sirius could have rented somewhere less dingy if she had a job to supplement the inheritance left to her by her uncle. But she has stubbornly avoided looking for full-time work, insisting that she needs to be available at a moment’s notice for Order assignments. So far, at least to Remus’s knowledge, she’s only had two assignments, and they involved research (as opposed to an urgent call into action).

Sirius sits down next to Remus and props her feet up on the coffee table, knocking over an empty carton. She grabs her own butterbeer from the table and takes a swig. She wipes her hand, wet from the condensation on the bottle, on the leg of her jeans. “Well, Moony? What do you think of my place?”

“It’s not bad,” Remus offers. “It’ll be better after you’ve lived in it for a while.”

“Yes, things tend to improve in my presence,” Sirius says with a grin.

“I don’t think that’s what I said.” Remus runs her finger along the lip of the bottle.

“I think it is.” Sirius throws one of her legs over Remus’s lap. It’s funny how Sirius has changed since they first met. Back then, she wouldn’t give Remus - or anyone - so much as a high five. She was adamant about maintaining personal space. The first time they hugged was in second year. Sirius had been talking in her sleep, sounding distressed, so Remus woke her up and offered a hug. Sirius looked at her like she was crazy, but then said, “okay.” And now she is more likely than not to drape herself over Remus at any given opportunity. Sometimes it’s a bit much. It’s not that Remus doesn’t like physical affection from Sirius; it’s just that it doesn’t mean what she wants it to mean.

Sirius jumps off the couch suddenly, causing Remus to spill a little of her drink. “What should we listen to?”

The only furniture in the living room besides the sofa and coffee table is an old set of drawers, atop which sits Sirius’s record player. The amount of money she spent on it was appalling to Remus, although she can’t deny that the sound is incredible.

Remus introduced Sirius to Muggle music, and to her surprise, she's really taken to it. “More Songs About Buildings and Food?”

“Alright.” Sirius locates the album and drops the needle somewhere in the middle, which she knows gets under Remus’s skin. She rejoins Remus on the couch and leans her head on her shoulder, mouthing the lyrics to “The Girls Want to Be with the Girls.”

“You know, I’m going to miss living with you,” Sirius tells her.

“I can’t imagine why,” Remus replies. “You’re always complaining about how I leave my books everywhere.”

“You are your books are a package deal, and I’d rather have both than neither.”

Remus smiles, hoping it isn’t apparent how flattered she is. “Well, if you get a bunk bed, I can move in with you,” she jokes. She can’t, of course. Doesn’t have a job (never mind an inheritance) to pay rent.

“Or you could just sleep in my bed,” Sirius suggests, tracing a pattern on Remus’s arm.

“And where would you be?” Goosebumps prickle Remus’s skin.

“Also in my bed, obviously.” Sirius’s eyes are bright with mischief.

“Well, I can’t imagine that would last very long. It would be quite an ordeal to put up with your snoring at such a close range.”

Sirius shoves Remus playfully. “I do _not_ snore!”

“No,” Remus admits, “but you do talk in your sleep.”

“Well you drool in your sleep, so I think we’re even.”

Remus feels her cheeks flush. “How would you know that?”

“I pay attention,” Sirius responds cheekily.

Remus finishes off her butterbeer. 

“Want another?”

“Alright.” Remus undoes her ponytail, combs her fingers through her hair, and puts it back up again. The back of her neck is sticky with sweat. It’s moments like these when she wishes she had the courage to chop all of her hair off like Sirius did. It would bring too much attention to Remus’s face. In Sirius’s case, that’s a good thing: her eyes, her cheekbones, and her lips are equally stunning. But Remus, her nose is too big, her face is too round, there’s a faint scar on her left cheek, and her skin is blotchy. 

It’s difficult for Remus to pinpoint the moment when she stopped feeling jealous of Sirius’s appearance and started feeling something else. The jealousy was petty and shameful; Remus isn’t someone who cares all that much about her own appearance, and she certainly doesn’t want anyone to think she does. The other feeling, which had maybe been behind the jealousy all along, is hard to look at head-on. But it’s like a splinter that is too small to see: the sensation won’t go away, and she doesn’t know how to take it out, or if she even wants to try.

Sirius is in the little kitchen, just out of Remus's line of sight. Now that Sirius has moved all of her stuff in - which isn’t much, really, since she’s been disowned - the next step is to stock her fridge (with food, because there are plenty of drinks). She worries, a little, about Sirius living alone. It’s not that she _can’t_ do laundry or take out the trash or prepare three meals for herself a day, but Remus isn’t sure that she will _._

Sirius comes back into the living room swinging a bottle of Merlot. 

“Hm. That’s not butterbeer.”

“No, it’s better.” Sirius removes the cork with her teeth and takes a deep swig. She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand and then plops down onto the sofa.

“Very classy.” This is one of their games: Remus pretends to be bothered by Sirius’s unladylike behavior, and Sirius acts like she doesn’t know that Remus loves the unhindered way she moves through the world. 

“You know I don’t have any wine glasses, Moony.”

“Even if you did, I doubt you’d be using them.” 

“There will be no false sense of decorum in _this_ house,” Sirius declares.

“Cheers to that.” Remus raises the bottle of wine and takes a sip. It has a bitter aftertaste. “Although calling it a house is a stretch.” 

“It’s inconsiderate to insult my charming residence while you’re enjoying my hospitality.” Sirius scratches at her upper arm, where her new tattoo of a phoenix is still healing. 

Remus pulls Sirius’s hand away from the inflamed skin. 

“Remus.”

Remus folds her hands in her lap. “What?”

“Can I tell you something?” Sirius looks solemn, suddenly.

“Well, if you’re about to confess to a crime, I’d rather not know,” Remus says.

“Not exactly.”

"Okay." Remus doesn't know where this is going, and she doesn't like it.

Sirius props her elbow against the sofa and stares at Remus. Her pale skin is painted ocher by the light of the setting sun.

Remus says "you're making me nervous" at the same time that Sirius says "I want to kiss you."

Remus goes slack-jawed. It's not that she wasn't already looking at Sirius's lips, stained red by the wine, but now she's fixated on them. "Uh," she says.

Sirius jiggles her knee and runs a hair through her hair. "So I would love to know what you're thinking. If it's 'fuck you, you mad dyke,' that's understandable, but-"

"It's not that," Remus says quickly. Kissing Sirius would almost certainly have serious consequences. Probably, Sirius just wants to have a bit of fun, and when it's over, she'll act like nothing happened, like no _feelings_ are involved, because they almost certainly aren't, for Sirius, and Remus isn't sure she can cope with that. However, she doesn't have as much self-control as her friends seem to think she does, and it's hard to turn down what you want when it's being offered to you freely. "I, um. I think you should."

"Really?" Sirius stops bouncing her leg.

Remus chews her lip and nods.

Sirius blinks three times in rapid succession, then leans in toward Remus.

Sirius presses her lips to Remus’s very briefly and gently. Then she moves away and crosses her arms, looking diffident (which Remus doesn’t think has ever happened before).

“If you’re going to kiss me, at least do it properly,” Remus says, steeling herself. She puts her hand on the back of Sirius’s neck and kisses her open-mouthed, unapologetic. Sirius makes a little sound in the back of her throat and reciprocates.

It’s not unlike kissing a boy - the mechanics are the same, after all - but it’s better, because it’s Sirius. She’s carding through Remus’s hair, she’s sucking on Remus’s bottom lip. Remus tries not to ask herself _why me?_ because the answer is probably just that she’s here. Isn’t she allowed to just feel good for once, to have what she wants for a moment?

Remus pulls Sirius closer so that she’s almost in her lap. Sirius puts her hand on Remus’s cheek and says, her mouth a finger’s width away from Remus’s, “You’re good at this.”

“Don’t try to flatter me.” Remus kisses Sirius again, hand on her waist. She slips her tongue into Sirius’s mouth as Sirius straddles her. Remus keeps one hand on Sirius as the other fumbles around the couch cushions, searching for her wand. When she finds it, she gives it a quick wave, shutting the curtains over the one window in the room and enclosing the pair of them in darkness. 

* * *

When Remus wakes up, Sirius - stark naked in the bed next to Remus - is looking at her. Looking avidly, like Remus is what she wants to see, even though her hair is a wreck and she needs a shower and has a line of saliva trailing out of her mouth at the corner. She wipes it away quickly.

"Um, good morning," she says, voice croaky with sleep. Here it comes: the aftermath. 

Sirius tucks a curl behind Remus's ear. Sirius's hair is sticking up on one side of her head.

"Have you been awake long?" Remus asks, hoping her breath doesn't smell too awful. 

Sirius shrugs. She's rarely this quiet and it's making Remus nervous. She should probably go home right now. She didn't even tell her mother where she'd be. 

Remus closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. She might as well get it out of the way. "I hate to ask this kind of question so early in the morning-"

"It's 10am," Sirius interjects, and Remus opens her eyes to a teasing smile.

Remus tugs the blanket up so that it covers her chest. "Please let me finish."

Sirius mimes zipping her lips.

"So," Remus starts, not feeling bold at all but continuing anyway. "Was that - last night - was that a one and done sort of thing, or-"

"No!" Sirius sits up, and the sheet she was under falls to her hip. "I mean, I hope not." With the morning light filtering through the sheer curtains behind her, she looks like a sculpture of a young Apollo.

"I also hope not," Remus says, because Sirius is looking down at her with wide eyes. And now what? Now what? Are they a proper couple? Are they friends who sometimes sleep together? There isn't a script for this. They are in uncharted waters, beautiful but with depths unknown.

"Brilliant." Sirius drops back down onto the bed and kisses Remus on the forehead. The tenderness of the gesture takes Remus off guard. Sirius smells sweaty, but somehow it's comforting; something in Remus's brain must be broken.

Sirius stretches and yawns, showcasing her untrimmed armpit hair. Remus likes all the ways Sirius rebels against the world's expectations of her. She likes everything about Sirius, even the things that she shouldn't, even the things that drive her mad sometimes. 

"When did you know?" Remus asks quietly, slowly tracing the outline of Sirius's tattoo.

"That I'm gay?" Sirius says unflinchingly. 

Remus nods.

"Fifth year."

That makes sense. Sirius hasn't been on a date - at least, not that Remus knows of - since fifth year, when she went out with Robert Gardner. It didn't end well. He tried to get a hand up her skirt and she hexed him so badly that he spent the night in the hospital wing.

"Does James know?"

"Sort of. We've never actually talked about it, but I don't think it really needs saying."

Remus wishes she could be half as confident as Sirius. "How did you know?"

Sirius chews her lip for a moment before answering. "I kept wondering what it would be like to kiss you."

"In _fifth_ year?" Remus looks away from Sirius as she tries to fit this information into her personal narrative of their friendship. It's unsettling. "What took you so long?" she says, half-joking.

Sirius scoffs. "You wouldn't have let me kiss you in fifth year. You almost didn't let me kiss you last night."

That is true. Remus rubs her eyes.

"You can be so closed-off, you know?" There's nothing accusatory in her tone. 

"I know," Remus admits, touching the hairs at the back of Sirius's neck. "I wish I could be more like you." But even the thought scares her. 

"I don't want that," Sirius tells her, taking Remus's hand in hers. "I just want you to let me in." Sirius aligns her body with Remus's and presses her face into the crook of Remus's neck, like she belongs there.

Why does Sirius always have to ask so much of her?

"What are you thinking right now?" Sirius asks, her lips brushing Remus's skin as she speaks.

Remus is thinking a lot of things. She's thinking of telling Sirius to fuck off and stop pushing her. She's thinking about how soft Sirius's skin is. She's thinking of what it would be like to wake up next to Sirius every day. "I'm scared," she says, her hand on the small of Sirius's back.

"Of what? Me?"

"No. Of - of how I feel about you."

"Because it's queer?" There's a bitter undertone to Sirius's question. 

"No." That's not it. That in and of itself isn't frightening - not anymore. Remus came to terms with how she feels about Sirius - and about other girls in general - a while ago. "Because-"

"Because I might hurt you," Sirius supplies. She sits up suddenly, her head hitting Remus's chin.

"Ow!" Remus tastes blood.

"Sorry!" Sirius touches her fingers to Remus's lips gently. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah." She's just bitten the inside of her lip a bit. "I'm fine."

"I'd never hurt you, Moony," Sirius tells her, even though she just did. "I mean, not emotionally. Or physically, for that matter."

Remus runs her tongue over the tiny wound inside her mouth, thinking of all the times that Sirius has hurt her (not physically, of course, aside from a few genuine accidents). It's not a long list, but it's incriminating. 

"Not intentionally," Sirius adds softly.

Remus knows they are both thinking of the same incident. "That's a lot of qualifiers, Padfoot." She wants to trust Sirius, but it definitely goes against her instinct for self-preservation. 

"I'll prove myself to you," Sirius tells her, eyes bright and earnest. Then one side of her mouth turns up. "I'll tattoo your name on my back."

"Oh, god." Remus throws her arm over her eyes and Sirius laughs. "Please don't."

Sirius kisses Remus's right breast, then her left. It feels nice.

"It's too early for this," Remus mumbles.

"Again, it's 10am. Hardly early." But Sirius stops. "I'm going to make you breakfast," she announces.

"How domestic of you," Remus quips.

"Don't pretend you don't like it." 

The bed springs creak as Sirius gets up. Remus watches covertly as Sirius pulls on a t-shirt and sweatpants. Then she leaves the room, supposedly to prepare a meal, although the lack of ingredients is likely to be an obstacle.

Remus feels a bit like her world has been turned upside down. No - like it's right side up for maybe the first time. 

It isn't a surprise to her that Sirius is a lesbian. It just hadn't occurred to Remus that Sirius could ever look at her and see something she wanted.

Before James and Lily finally started dating, the other students at Hogwarts assumed that James and Sirius would end up together. He was a bloke and she was a girl and they were joined at the hip, so people were convinced that there must be something romantic between them. This logic was sometimes extended to pair Remus and Peter with one another. It annoyed Remus a great deal, but she tried not to show it because she didn't want to offend Peter. As for the rumors about James and Sirius, Remus tried her best to dismiss them, but looking back now, she couldn't deny the envy she felt. Remus told herself she was just jealous of how close they were as friends. Once, she'd asked Sirius if she and James had ever kissed. "Merlin, no," Sirius answered, then pretended to retch. "That would be like snogging Regulus."

The first day of seventh year, Sirius stole a pair of James’ trousers and charmed them to fit her. She proceeded to wear them to all of her classes (James never even knew that those were his trousers). Several of the professors chastised her for violating the dress code. When sent to McGonagall’s office, it was expected that Sirius would get detention, or at least be forced to change, but instead McGonagall offered to transfigure all of Sirius’s skirts into trousers. Sirius smiled whenever this incident was spoken of and was exceptionally well-behaved in Transfiguration for the rest of the year (well, at least for the first term). She looked good in trousers. She looked good in anything, but the trousers really suited her. So did her short hair, and her tattoo, and the way she carried herself.

Despite how little the flimsy curtains manage to block out the daylight, Remus starts to drift off. Between moving furniture and, well, other physical activities, she really tired herself out yesterday.

* * *

“Good morning _again_ ,” Sirius says. She’s standing next to the bed with a paper plate in one hand and a mug in the other.

Remus sits up, startled. “Did you _actually_ cook?”

“Don’t sound so surprised.” Sirius hands over the plate and sits down next to Remus. 

The toast is kind of burnt and the scrambled eggs look a bit dry, but Remus is impressed. Touched, even. “Well. Thank you,” she says, trying not to sound as mushy as she feels. 

Sirius takes a sip from the mug and then passes it to Remus. 

“Do you, uh, know where my shirt is?” Now that Sirius is fully-clothed, Remus would rather not be in so opposite a state.

Sirius takes her wand from her pocket. “Accio Remus’s shirt.” 

The t-shirt zooms over from the living room and into Sirius’s outstretched hand. “There you go.” 

Remus puts her breakfast plate to the side and pulls the shirt over her head. 

Sirius slides off the bed without a word and walks out of the room with purpose (what purpose, Remus has no idea).

Remus tastes the tea. It’s perfect: Earl Grey with a splash of milk and nothing else.

“Sunday Morning” by the Velvet Underground starts playing from the living room. Remus smiles. It feels like it’s going to be one of those rare days when she smiles so much that her cheeks ache with the joy of it by the time she goes to sleep. Sirius reappears in the doorway. The hair on one side of her head is still a mess, and her shirt is on inside out. 

Remus reaches out a hand, inviting Sirius to join her.

**Author's Note:**

> It occurred to me that the world needs more fem!wolfstar. Then I realized: hey, that's something I can do!
> 
> I think this version of Sirius would identify as a nonbinary lesbian if she had access to that concept.


End file.
